February 2, 2012

James McArthur’s goal –Wigan make progress down our right hand side, working a two vs one which drags Sandro wide. McArthur takes advantage and makes an intelligent run and, although Parker gets back to him, his lunging challenge only loops the ball over Friedel.

Ben Watson carries the ball forward in a little space. Note Bale and Lancaster standing in the forward positions, and Kranjcar ahead of Sandro, Parker and Modric.

Substitute McArthur, the eventual scorer, picks takes possession and spreads play wide to Moses. Sandro is covering McArthur at this point, with Parker in the middle of the pitch and Modric to his left.

As Beausejour makes the overlapping run, Sandro is forced to make up the numbers, with Bale caught up-field. McArthur sees this and intelligently makes a break in behind him. Although Parker reads the danger, he is always going to struggle to get across in time.

Moses weights his ball perfectly for McArthur…

…who is able to take the shot first time, despite the desperate lunge from Parker.

The ball deflects off Parker and loops awkwardly over Friedel, who has an impossible task.

TBH, I felt that once that throughout the second half we showed callous disrespect to Wigan. We did not track back up properly, especially down our left, and we were lazy in our passing. Fortunately, Wigan really are crap and failed to take advantage. but a better team would’ve.

Anonymous, we were very sloppy against Wigan especially at 3-0 however, having said that we were so in control we were never going to get pegged back. You say a better team would’ve taken advantage, but had we been up against a better side we wouldn’t have been so lack-a-daisical. Let’s look at the positives – three really well taken goals, two or three other good chances (largely through Wigan’s inept defending), three points on the board, twelve clear of Arsenal, seven clear of chelsea, ten clear of fifth place.

At 3-0 I thought bale in particular was very naive. He was desperate to get his hat-trick when it would have been more advisable to think of the team and the cleansheet. That said, the instruction for him to get forward and support came from Harry once VDV went off. Shame the instruction to stop, probably failed to arrive at 3 nil.

what is the point on dwelling on this……….it happened due to us taking the foot of the gas……………………….ever heard of playing the game out……this wasnt negative…….consider 3 nil up..against a side we controlled ….save the players legs for next game etc……….